Punch, Kendrick Lamar - 25 lyrics

They felt like they were laying tracks
For the generation to come i think
My mother knew that freedom
Wouldn't come in her lifetime
Just like I know it
Won't come in mine it's a matter of
Either we stay like this or somebody
Sacrifice, somebody laying tracks
So we can stay in a 360
Degree deadly circle, somebody used to
Break out and risk, you
Know losing everything and being poor
And getting deep down cause
Someone has to do something, had
I had a father
Had I had some of these opportunities i would
Be able to handle my mother more

I was taught never trust a nigga
Far as you can see him
Teach a nigga how to fish
As apposed to try'na feed him
Look a man in the eyes
That's the best way to read him
Cause faces they change
But point of views remain
I got a strange feeling
That I'm a lil bit different
Beyond the customs and tradition
Of a project living
My Korean war vet, grandfather's affliction
Was stress and I inherited
His heart condition
And Van Arthur's addiction
Was heroin needles
Petty hustling, d'evils, that street men lust
So I'm mixed with that
Lethal combination but trust
I've only scratched the surface
What's underneath this verse is
The feeling of a young boy lost
Without a purpose
Still waters run deep in the
Street we were submerged in
Police lurking, try'na catch a nigga serving
He ain't going back to jail
So he bust a verse

This is for my everyday young nigga
It don't really matter where you from niggas
Before you leave the house
Kiss your moms nigga
Cause you don't know when
That day'll come nigga
Cause only Lord knows that I
Know how you feel
What we gotta do just to live
Is try not to get our cap peeled
Try not to get your cap peeled

It's hard to get to know me
Unless you hear between bars
Tortured soul self contained on
My childhood scars
I was involved from a far
Affected by the street laws concrete walls
Not even earthquakes could shake
Them brick walls
Nickerson garden projects this is me y'all
Where Dope dealers have it
All and then freefall
Caine numbs the pain up and
Down the ghetto seesaw
The voice of the youth
They hear me and they see y'all
They don't see a diamond in the rough
They see flaws
They should see how we was raised
And they would be in awe
Against all it gets hard not to kill niggas
It's like a full-time job not
To grab the semi-auti
And go kamikaze on somebody who plotting
Probably on my body laying lifeless
Ungodly sacrifices
To the streets, this is the trinity
Money malice and murder the hood's deity

They say the average black man
Only lives to 25 well I made it past that
And a nigga still alive
Which means I'm in the red
I'm indebted to death
That's the wages that sin pay
I'm still tracing my steps
Leaving my footprints in the sand
The concrete rose
That grew on infertile land and
Blossomed to a grown man
My only fear is pops holding moms hand
Dripping tears on my casket
I refuse to let it happen
By any means avoiding the city traffic
Shooters got the green light
They blocking your right of passage
A young kid turned savage, city madness
A picture painted on the street's canvas
Excuse my brashness
I'm trying to live to see past this
Staring at the world and my
Rear view past tense
In no particular fashion
I'm on borrowed time I'mma
Grind with a passion

Generation to generation to come
They won't come in mind
Sacrifices, sacrifices, sacrifices
Deadly circle, deadly circle